San Francisco

San Francisco compresses beauty, ideas and fog into fifty square miles. Victorian streets, the Golden Gate, cable cars, waterfront neighbourhoods and a long tradition of invention create a city whose influence on how the world lives and works far exceeds its size.

San Francisco grew almost overnight from the Gold Rush of 1849, was rebuilt after the earthquake and fire of 1906, and has been reshaped since by every wave of newcomers. The city sits on more than forty hills at the northern end of its peninsula, with the Pacific on one side, the bay on the other and the Golden Gate between them.

Its districts are distinct and walkable: Nob Hill with its old mansions and cable cars, Union Square and its department stores, Chinatown and North Beach side by side, the Victorian streets of Pacific Heights, and the Embarcadero curving along the water to the Ferry Building. Napa and Sonoma lie about an hour to the north, and Muir Woods just across the bridge.

San Francisco’s seasons run against expectation. June, July and August are often cool and grey, as the marine layer rolls in through the Golden Gate in the afternoon. September and October are the warm, clear months — the city’s real summer, and the season of harvest in the wine country to the north.

Winter is mild, with most of the year’s rain falling between November and March, and spring brings green hills and flowering gardens. The calendar includes Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatown, the San Francisco Opera and Symphony seasons from autumn, and a steady flow of conferences that can fill the city’s hotels at short notice.

Two Four Seasons hotels anchor the city: Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco on Market Street, beside Yerba Buena, and Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco at Embarcadero, high in a Financial District tower with views across the bay. On Nob Hill stand The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, in its colonnaded neoclassical building, and the Fairmont San Francisco, the grand hotel of 1907 at the summit. The St. Regis San Francisco faces Yerba Buena Gardens.

Each has its own character: the Market Street and Embarcadero towers suit the museums and the waterfront, while Nob Hill keeps the old San Francisco grandeur within reach of the cable cars. LVXVRY books them through Four Seasons Preferred Partner, Marriott STARS & Luminous and Accor Preferred — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges each programme attaches to the stay.